Road sailing is one thing and there is a fair bit of info out there about it, but cross desert sailing would be a LOT harder to do.
www.pterosail.com/
www.whike.com/nl/
Ya right, but if you are only relying on wind power as another form of propulsion or an extra form of assisted propulsion why not, the whole idea is to cross a desert useing as little fuel as possible.
And taking advantage of whatever free power is availible
ThundaUp, It would help if you could put up some photos of the terrain you are planning to cross. And what are the wind conditions there. Not may of us would have been there.
agree with the wind conditions,as they change continually , also the temps your going in, . if its sand duns and scrub,even your honda powered back up is going to struggle
OK. I dont think many are getting the idea.
Lets forget about calling it a wind sailer.
I'll call it a dune buggy, with a sail, and use it when conditions are favorable and that could be only once a week, sometimes light, other times west nor west and strong enough to call it quits for the day and camp up.
Low scrub, spinifex, lots of sand, some big dunes and no end of sky.
Entertainment is peace and quiet, and knocking foxes and feral cats off the face of the earth.
Land yachts actually don't generate a lot of power maybe 20kg for about a 5 sqm sail (guesstimation) so double the size to 10 sqm and you might get 40-50 kg of thrust. That amount of thrust wouldnt even push a 'standard' car along on asphalt.
Thanks Gismo,
That puts a different light on the whole deal, maybe I'm better off looking at electrics with back up petrol.
Thats the sort of numbers i was looking for, sounds like you know your stuff.
Thanks again.
maybe a bank of batteries powering an electric motor and a solar panel or 3 to power the batteries rather than sail,,,i'd say that the size of sail you'd need would be just out of the question and to big for just one person to handle and the size of yacht you'd need to handle the sail would be rather large also,, but solar power'd could be made a lot smaller,,,,
another thought you could also have what is known as a traction kite or power kite,, a big kite will provide a lot of pulling power,, and they can be made as big as you want,, i have been flying kites for over 20 years and have sn traction kites tied to a land cruiser and saw it movered along the beach,,,,and the beauty of these are that they are sorf and fold up into almost nothing,, the down side is that you have to have the wind blowing in the direction that you want to go....just a thought though.....
Thanks Gismo and Beachball.
As I said I came to your forum for advice and ideas for a project to satisfy my need for adventure, I know nothing about your sport and your thoughts, ideas, and advive are very welcome.
I now think l'll do some research on your suggestions and try to come up with a working sulution.
Thank you, l hope l hear from you both again with some thoughts on this, maybe if you thought along the lines of how you would build a vehicle for this project.
I don't care if someone else dose this before me, if it's across the Simpson or anywhere else it would be a great adventure for any person or group, (even more fun as a group) even for those people overseas who would like to see Australia from a totaly different point of view, as there must be a lot of young of older adventurers out there.
It would be fantastic if this could work and become an anual event on a permanant route somewhere in remote parts of the outback of our great country.
For those who have never seen the back of beyond in the spring they are truly missing the best of Australia, both by day and night, it would be great if it could happen, but it needs more like minded people that have some experience of your sport and the great outback of Australia to make it happen.
I was always hopefull of sparking some interest in others on this sort of project when l came to your forum, and l hope it still dose.
well i have to say as far fetched as it sounds it is an interesting idea,,,,would you get a great deal of interest from this forum for people to join you on this adventure,,i suspect not, I'm sure the wright brothers had the same issues before they finally got "off the ground" and now look apparently we're heading to the moon again in a few years time so i guess the spirit of adventure is there, just have a look at the sydney to hobart yacht race every year....yep sure there must be some adventurers out there but i think most of us, and before anyone says anything, i include myself in this group unfortunatly, are just to wrapped up in their comfortable life to go beyond our front doors into what is an "unknown" adventure....perhaps there are more "arm chair" adventurers than actual ones....We will always find a reason to poo poo someones ideas and reasons why we couldn't possibly do it or why the idea won't work, as well labeling them as crazy or misinformed or dangerous,,,I have just had an experience with "big brother" telling me what i can and can't do and I have to agree whole heartedly with you that,, that this is our country, black or white, we all live here so we should be able to travel where we want without having to get big brother's permission,, having said that I say "to hell with the nay sayers and go and do it" I for one will be wanting to be kept in the loop as to progress becasue I may just be walking/sailing/kiting right along side you, because I'm sick of being told what i can and can't do,,,, Sorry mate that turned into a bit of a rant there ,,,,,,
Thanks again Beachball and Gismo.
Thats no rant Beachball, I know where your comming from, I have a big brother that was always telling me l was crazy doing the things l've done, even when l joined the army at 17 l was crazy, but ended up having the biggest adventure of my life.
And the poor pussy wipped excuse for a man still hasent made it passed the bloody post office.
Gismo. Nice pic's thanks, your kite sounds good, how hard are they to control? and can you control them at low speed?
How hard are they to get in the air, and how do you retreive them, maybe i'm better off going to one of these events and seeing for my self rather than bothering you blokes all the time.
Beach ball, l'm thinking of takeing you up on the invite and getting an "ed-u-mac-ation" on kiting and blow carting, l had a look at some vids on these things and am a bit pissed off in not getting into them years ago, you blokes have been having too much fun and the rest of us have been left behind....Bugger..
Areobatics are better than sex ever was, but this sport of yours runs a serious second place to both..
I'm going to look around to see if l can find anyone in Tassy doing this blo carting and have a gander maybe take a crack at it too.
Yes I know Thundaup was talking 'cross country' maybe you might need to get a copy of the National Geographic November 1967..... Across the Sahara in land yachts.
www.amazon.com/National-Geographic-November-1967-Volume/dp/B000M9EBWC
Select to expand quoteGizmo said...
If you said you wanted to do it on the road...... well thats another thing 
Hey Gismo, thanks for those pic's the weard little thing that looks like a plane thats tried to fly through a pipe has given me an idea.
An old mate of mine who used to do some flying with me started to build a BD 5 (see them on youtube) now he wants to sell it, it's almost finished apart from the wings. If you or any one is interested in building something like the jigger in the photo, it would be perfect, as its built like a brick dunny and good for 200kts, it includes the canopy, rudders, control colum etc etc it is all aircraft grade ally and would go like cat crap off a lino floor.
Veeeery little mods would get this tin of viagra fairly flyin down the track with one of those traction kites Beachy was talkin about. Awesome!!
Bonjour,
A Swiss adventurer tried to cross in 2003 Australia with a pedal/sail yacht.
Unfortunately web site is down.Only found:
www.walkaboutjoe.com/swiss.pdf
I did see somewhere just recently on maybe youtube some kids crossing the nullaboor from ceduna heading west using the old road which must run near or alongside the new bitumen road using blokarts and i have seem other you tube footage of blokarts crossing deserts and such but on hard tracks,, maybe a blokart crossing supported by a vehicle or two might fit the bill and be sponsored by blokart NZ and maybe someone like say RED BULL or something like that........just a thought
This is the only cross country land yacht I have seen that works. It gets itself and pilot across country but anymore payload than a couple of sandwiches and a six pack, it probably won't cut it.
Interesting video... most of the shots were of the yacht coming down hills with only a few going up short hills.
There is another more impressive vid of them going up and over hillocks. I was just too lazy to track it down.
But when you've got more than 25 kn and a solid yacht you can climb everywhere. This is my old Seagull Miniclub (or MC2), a very good starting point for an hybrid electric/sail project, taking advantage of its separate stainless steel chassis.
Maybe this is what your after?
http://forums.thecarlounge.com/showthread.php?6021051-A-poors-mans-land-yacht-Concept./page43
Interesting... is it my end or are those pic's cut in half ? Can you send them to me and do you know who the bloke is?
That's the Swiss guy that sailed across Australia, from what I recall he didn't make it.
Soon after he did the attempt there was some stuff on the web about it BUT it was written in his language, so the pics are all I got.
As to the size, push Ctrl and 0 (zero) this will give a 100% screen view or Ctrl+ or Ctrl- to zoom in and out.
Interesting photo of the guy with the pedal powered yacht.
Gizmo, with your vast experience can you confirm that it is legal to sail a landyacht on public roads provided several criteria are met, namely:-
1. Alternate means of propulsion needed (pedal, electric or fuel)
2. Maximum speed 25kmph
3. Maximum power 200 watt
4. I guess brakes and a bell would be necessary too but lights (as on bikes) only needed at night.
Stephen (SN) has mentioned the requirements to me before. The speed and power limitations enables gophers and WhipperSnipper powered bicycles to be legally driven unlicenced on the road.
If so, then a pedal powered yacht with an almost totally useless drive system (lip service only) would comply.
I still intend to do the 260k round trip from Denham to the N/W Highway and return when I can, planning it for a windy moonlit night on the deserted road, but a simple/useless pedal driven wheel opens the door for me.
I put the idea to include landyachts as another category with the Solar Powered Car Darwin to Adelaide race people a while back but was rejected on several grounds. Those being we needed to demonstrate capability to travel 500km per day and no secondary means of propulsion allowed.
They were very interested though.
I wont mention how magic the weather is up here in Shark Bay.
.....Wok
